From Logitech Harmony to Sofabaton: a week with my new international remote control
When my wife and I, along with our then four-year-old son, moved into the house three years ago, I promised that the new living room would be a family room first and a home theater second.
The 12-speaker, two-amp beast I had put together (and loved) wouldn’t fit that brief, so it went into storage with the promise that I would one day turn the garage into a dedicated cinema room.
Another added benefit of simplifying the system is that I can retire the carefully programmed Logitech Harmony remote that made the old setup ‘normal’ people use.
The simpler it becomes the more complex
Over time, the sources moved back. Alongside the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X came the Nintendo Switch.
I returned the Apple TV 4K for better picture and sound than the integrated Google TV A95L platform, too. This was sitting next to the main Sky Stream Puck.
And finally, I could bear to leave my beloved Oppo UDP-203 Blu-ray player in a cold, damp place.
Six sources for four HDMI inputs will not go, so it was necessary to add an HDMI button, and HDMI-CEC, which was unreliable from the beginning, was almost useless.
Of course, sometimes a single press of the power button would wake everything up and switch to the correct input. More often than not, though, something wouldn’t cooperate, leaving us staring at a blank screen while looking at one of the many remote controls scattered around the room.
The Search for Harmony
After putting myself and my family through this for far too long, I admitted defeat. It was time for the universal remote again.
My old Harmony was still maintained and technically still supported, but I didn’t want to invest the effort in setting up a discontinued product that could lose support at any time – or fail without taking up space.
So I went looking for something more modern. The internet pointed me to the Sofabaton X1S.
After a week of use, I can say that the Sofabaton X1S has simplified our setup. But it’s not the magic bullet that was Harmony.
The biggest problem – and one widely reported by Sofabaton users – is the absence of a ‘Help’ button.
It is inevitable that, from time to time, something will not open or change the input correctly. Harmony’s solution was simple: press Help and the remote will resend commands, then take you to adjust power or input status.
Sofabaton offers no such safety net. If something goes wrong, you’ll either have to exit Tasks, dig into the Devices menu, find the misbehaving part and fix it manually (unheard of for an experienced user, let alone a beginner), or dig through the original remote to find the trick part in question.
Even the new Sofabaton, pricier X2 doesn’t seem to include the same ‘assistance’ function, suggesting this is not an oversight but a deliberate design decision. That confuses me.
To be fair, the X1S gets things right the first time, most of the time. But if it doesn’t happen, the recovery process feels awkward. It’s the main reason I’m tempted to resurrect my old Harmony.
Setup was also more involved than I remember from Harmony. Configuration is completely handled via the phone app – fine for many, I’m sure, but I’m a middle-aged man who strongly agrees with the theory of wanting to use a computer instead of a phone for anything ‘hard’.
Finding the right device profiles has proved a no-no either, especially with UK-specific kit. My Sky Stream Puck required several attempts before I got a fully functional profile – ironically, provided by a user. Also, even after specifying my exact TV model, most of the instructions were incorrect, leaving me to fix it myself.
Ultimately, Sofabaton feels like it ‘knows’ your devices a little more than Harmony. Where the Harmony was generally expectant, the X1S often required instruction.
My other gripe is the lack of a charging dock. Connecting it is not difficult, but a simple pose can feel very good. Third party options exist, but not in the UK.
The good outweighs the bad
That may sound like a lot of criticism, but I like the Sofabaton X1S. The design is sleek and comfortable, the scroll wheel is preferable to the touch screen (although I know not all owners agree), and the included transmitter reliably reaches parts placed in deep places.
Most importantly, we’ve reduced our six remotes to one, and my wife and son can use the system with more confidence than ever before.
It has restored order to our home cinema – even if it hasn’t yet restored Harmony.
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